Airport Verbal Smackdown: Maria Conchita Alonso vs. Sean Penn

Cuban actress Maria Conchita Alonso started a verbal altercation with actor and “Colors” (1988) co-star Sean Penn at LAX over the weekend over Penn’s support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Alonso, who was born in Cuba but raised in Venezuela, spotted Penn at LAX where she was picking up her mother who had just gotten off a flight from Miami, Sunday.

The actress says she walked over to Penn, who was standing at the American Airlines lost baggage counter, and said, “I would like to talk to you.”

Last year, Alonso wrote an open letter to Penn stating that she was “appalled” by his public support of President Chavez, so when she saw him at the airport she felt the need to speak with him, but he was not up for it.

Alonso said Penn told her, ‘I have nothing to say to you … You have been saying a lot of things about me in the press.’

After that, a full on argument broke out, and a number of people began watching the pair. Things escalated to the point of name-calling, with Alonso calling Penn a “communist a**hole,” and him calling her pig.

The actress said she returned to her wheel-chaired mother who attempting to clap as her daughter yelled back to Penn, calling him a “Communist a**hole” once more in front of a stunned audience.

Penn later told the New York Post, ‘I only knew that a hostile woman was nonsensically berating me. I didn’t realize it was that actress. I think I worked with her once. But she looks really different. She was uninformed and impolite to all the other passengers.’

During a taping of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” Penn praised Chavez for his help in Haiti, where he was coincidentally returning from when the altercation with Alonso occurred.

On the show, Penn, at the time referring to the U.S. Army’s collaboration with Venezuela, said, “We hope that those kind of collaborations can set an example for future approaches to many other issues.”

Since the incident at LAX, Alonso has since expressed her regret over her use of profanity during the altercation.